


Quixotic

by TeaRoses



Category: Silent Hill
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank tells Cynthia the true story of the family who lived in Apartment 302.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quixotic

**Author's Note:**

> This is slightly AU because Cynthia lives in Frank’s apartment building, and I changed the backstory details slightly. I read a ficlet on the kink meme (not a Frank/Cynthia one) with a vaguely similar scene to one scene in this, but I had worked out this fic before I read it.

Frank sat in his living room watching a game show on television. It was almost eight, and he was surprised to hear a knock on the door. He hoped it wasn’t another plumbing emergency. When he opened it, he saw Cynthia Velasquez who lived on the first floor. She was a beautiful woman, and if he had been a younger man he might have made excuses to drop by her apartment himself.

“Look,” she began, “I know I’m late with the rent.”

“Five days,” said Frank. “You’re going to have to pay a late fee.” 

“That’s the thing,” she said, entering his apartment and shutting the door behind her. “I don’t have the money yet. I just got a new job. So can I pay you in two weeks?”

“Miss Velazquez, I can’t just let people pay the rent in the middle of the month like that.” If it were up to him, he might, but it wasn’t.

“It’s just this once,” she said. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

He shook his head. “The management company doesn’t give me any choice. I just collect the rent.”

She drew closer to him. Frank could smell her perfume. Putting a hand on his chest, she gave a seductive smile.

“Listen, I don’t want to end up out on the street. I could do something for you, in exchange.”

Frank was ashamed of the way his body reacted to her closeness, and backed away. “Do you know what kind of trouble I could get in if I took advantage of the lady tenants like that?”

“None, trust me,” she said drily.

“What’s that mean? Have you done this a lot?” he asked.

“No, just--“

“Have you been bringing men into this building for money?” he persisted. 

“No!” She looked angry, and then said in a sarcastic tone, “If I did that I could probably pay the rent.”

He believed her that she wasn’t a prostitute. Maybe she was just desperate, which made him feel bad for her. “I’m sorry I accused you of that. But it’s like I said, the management company doesn’t give me any choice,” said Frank. Behind him, he could hear canned laughter on the television.

“So if they tell you to throw me out on the street, you’ll do that?” she asked.

“I—“ Frank shook his head. “Is that really what it would come to?”

“Well, my family isn’t about to take me in,” she said. “I’d end up homeless.”

He sighed. She could be lying, but he didn’t think she was, and he hated the mental image of her sleeping on the sidewalk. “All right. Look, just this once, you can pay the rent late. But it had better be here in two weeks.”

Cynthia was smiling now. “Thank you so much. I promise I’ll have it then.” She put a hand on his shoulder, but he only backed away again. “You have a nice night,” she said.

When she left, Frank sat in front of the television again, his head in his hands.

Two weeks later Cynthia knocked on the door again. “I told you I’d have the rent,” she said, taking her checkbook out of her purse.

“You can make the check out to me,” he said. “Frank Sunderland.”

“To you? Not the management company?” She took out a pen, and then hesitated. “Is there something funny going on?” she asked. “You said it wasn’t you who collected the rent.”

He considered not telling her, but it seemed he was going to have to. “I gave the management company the money for your rent,” he said in a soft voice. “Out of my savings.”

“You did what?”

“Please don’t tell anyone. I can’t have other tenants asking me to do that.”

“What if I hadn’t paid you back?” she asked, writing the check.

He shrugged. “I’d have been out some money then.”

She handed him the check. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m really grateful. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. But why the Don Quixote act?”

“I thought about what you said, about being out on the street, and then I thought of… well, never mind.”

“You can tell me,” she said.

Frank sighed and scratched the back of his head. “A long time ago… I had to evict a couple. They lived in number 302. I didn’t want to do it, because she was pregnant, and I tried to argue the management company out of it. But they told me they’d fire me and still throw them out, so I filled out the eviction papers. I tried to warn the couple. I even called Social Services looking for help for them. But they ran out in the middle of the night, and they-- She’d had the baby. They left it here, in the middle of the floor, not even cleaned up. ”

“Somebody told me about that, that a baby had been left here. But it wasn’t your fault. You did more than most people would do.”

“It gets worse. The baby was sent to an orphanage. I couldn’t keep it; my wife was already sick and people can’t just go around keeping babies like that. But he went to Wish House. Back then people thought it was a nice place.“

“I’ve heard some of the stories about Wish House, too. They sounded bad, but that wasn’t your fault either. Nobody knew then.”

He held up his hand. “I found this out later, and it’s a long story why. But the baby turned out to be Walter Sullivan.”

“The serial killer?” Cynthia asked. “I remember hearing about him a while back. But why are you so sure it was him?”

There was a tear running down Frank’s cheek now. “I don’t want to say, but I am sure. If I had known, I never would have done it. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. But if he hadn’t been abandoned, or he’d gone to a decent place, maybe everything would have been different.” He wiped at his face and took a deep breath. “You probably think I’m a horrible person now.”

She drew closer to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “The parents are the ones who abandoned him, and then Wish House—who knows if it’s their fault either. Maybe he made his own choices; maybe nobody knows. But you didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. “I never tell anyone about it.” 

She embraced him then. “It’s all right, Frank,” she murmured soothingly. “You’re a good person. I know because you did this for me.” Cynthia held him close, running a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. “It’s all right,” she repeated, and Frank put his head on her shoulder and finally gave in to his tears.


End file.
